Nature Balancing Out...

After many months of record warmth nationally, Mother Nature has shifted the scales back to brutal cold over 75% of the lower 48 states.   We will see another surge of cold air arrive on Sunday, but because I don’t see any major dip in the upper steering, I don’t expect this blast to be any worse as the last two.  The core of the core will remain to our north so you snow lovers will be disappointed to know we will not see a white Christmas here.  That is to be expected, however, the week AFTER Christmas shows signs of a big dip in the steering that could bring us the threat of freezing weather all the way down to our coast.   That’s still 10-14 days away and lots could change.  In the short term,  all the weathercasters are singing from the same songbook.  Saturday will be windy & warm with a brief passing shower.  The cold front arrives on Sunday morning bringing more showers (and according to SPC a slight chance for a severe storm) with falling temps during the day.   I don’t see the threat for severe storms since most of the upper energy stays far to our north.  Sunday PM, Monday & Tuesday will be heavy coat days with some freezing temps possible for the North Shore before the warmup starts on Wednesday lasting through Christmas Day.   When I started in broadcasting in the early 70s, I remember some of the Arctic blasts would bring 40-50 degrees BELOW ZERO to parts of Montana & Wyoming.   We haven’t seen that kind of chill in a long time, however, Northern Montana could be 25-30 Below Sunday morning and that frigid air mass will spread across most of the northern states over the next 4-5 days.  We will need to pay attention for the next 2-2 ½ months in case a deep dip in the Jet stream (Polar Vortex) develops over the eastern states that would drive that cold down to us.  So far that is not happening.   Stay tuned!